Culture & Entertainment

R.I.P.: filmmaker Peter Wintonick

Culture & Entertainment

R.I.P.: filmmaker Peter Wintonick

The Canadian arts community is mourning the loss of filmmaker Peter Wintonick today. A pioneer in the documentary field, Wintonick was best known for co-directing (with Mark Achbar) the classic 1992 film
Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, which went on to become one of the most successful documentaries in Canadian history, screening in more than 200 cities around the world. Recently diagnosed with a rare form of liver cancer, Wintonick was admitted to a Montreal hospital last week and died this morning at the age of 60. According to his daughter, filmmaker Mira Burt-Wintonick, he “died peacefully, cracking jokes and spreading joy right to the end.” If you haven’t seen the extremely well made
Manufacturing Consent, you should. Taking off from the theories of everybody’s favourite public intellectual, Noam Chomsky, it’s about the dangers of mass media: the ability of the press not only to distort and misrepresent, but to influence public opinion in favour of governments and large corporations. The film probably did more to popularize Chomsky’s theories than Chomsky’s own book (also titled
Manufacturing Consent), not just because it’s a shorter time commitment—it runs less than three hours—but because it does such a good job of digesting and breaking down Chomsky’s theories. Watch it and impress your friends with your learnedness!